A Look Back at Some Awesome Iron Man Production Artwork

• John Fitzgerald
• Wednesday, November 18, 2009

When I first heard about an Iron Man movie the last thing that I was concerned about was his costume.

Iron Man, unlike his Marvel peers, such as Spider-Man or the X-Men, already had an advantage. You know, since he wears a bad-ass armor suit and not some sissy spandex. So, at least for me, this would be much easier to transfer from comics to film.

Of course, as we all know, Iron Man’s suit looked great on the big screen. In fact, it looked even better than what we already knew from the funny pages.

Instead of the classic, and campy, yellow and red armor, we got a slick update of a gold and red suit. It stayed true to the original costume, but added that little extra something to remind us how loaded Tony Stark really is. In fact, Stark’s transition into Iron Man could rival any gadget or armor that Bruce Wayne could conjure up.

Director Jon Favreau made the wise decision to show the suit being constructed into three stages, as opposed to, Tony Stark striking gold the first time around.

The first armor was the bulky, make shift outfit dubbed the Mark I, which Stark used to escape from his imprisonment in Afghanistan. This suit was based on the original armor Iron Man sported in his comic debut.

The second suit was the much more advanced Mark II. This costume was designed to resemble more of an airplane prototype. It looked like Iron Man’s armor, but it didn’t have the paint job yet.

Finally, the Mark III was completed into the Iron Man armor that we know and love.

The Mark III armor was designed by Adi Granov, who was previously responsible for an Iron Man comic relaunch. Good call on Favreau’s part to bring in someone from the actual comic. This design was inspired by the comic’s modern Exremis armor.

For the upcoming sequel, which is slated for a May 7, 2010 release, Granov has thankfully returned as designer.

Iron Man II will unleash the Mark IV armor. This is said to be more lighter, form-fitting and aero-dynamic than it’s predecessors.

Besides having an even more slicker Iron Man suit, we can also expect to see War Machine’s armor, which was actually designed during the first film’s production, as seen in this awesome production artwork.

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